The production of devices capable of emitting light through chemical means in well known in the art. Chemiluminescent lightsticks, for example, are taught by U.S. Pat. No. 3,539,794. Other configurations of devices for emitting chemical light have also been the subject of many U.S. patents, see, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,350,553; 3,729,425; 3,808,414; 3,893,938 and 4,814,949. A recent patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,166 has also issued directed to an emergency light containing a reflector. The above-mentioned patents are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
The devices of the prior art, while satisfying some specific needs, have generally not received wide-spread commercial acceptance because they fail in one or more critical areas. The devices of U.S. Pat. No. 3,350,533, for example, must be activated by air which requires some means for accessing the air, which means are subject to failure such as by leaking etc. Other devices have failed commercially because of their inability to emit light over the required period of time, while others emit poor quantities of light, do not concentrate the light in a centralized area, require too much chemical to be commercially attractive from an economic standpoint, do not emit light over a uniform area, etc.
Accordingly, industry is continually on the lookout for chemiluminescent devices which overcome most, if not all, of the deficiencies mentioned above, which devices are commercially attractive to the consumer and are relatively simply manufactured.
Rauhut et. al. combined the oxalate and fluorescer components of a chemiluminescent reaction mixture with a single polyvinyl chloride resin and a plasticizer and formulated a polymer film composition. The film produced a bright yellow-green chemiluminescent light when placed in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and sodium salicylate as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,816,325, which is also incorporated herein by reference. While this invention is operative, the single resin polyvinyl chloride sheet has deficiencies in its uniformity, strength, flexibility, porosity, absorbance and light development. The present invention comprises an absorptive material that is made in a reproducible fashion and has good strength, flexibility porosity, absorbance and light development that is not known in the prior art.